But, Because, But

Yesterday, I was listening to someone talking on the phone to her client. At this stage I should write that I wasn't spying on her, but coaching her on how to communicate with clients more effectively. This particular caller wanted my student to provide some information, and my student was trying to explain that the caller had already received the information, as she had sent out a full explanation by mail last week. And so, she kept starting every sentence with "But you already have that...", "But I..." "Because you didn't..." "Because I already..."etc. I really didn't like the conversation.
What was my problem? Although I wasn't listening to the caller's statements or questions, my student was making it very clear that she was in oppositon to everything her client was saying. While I would disagree if someone told me the sky was green and the sea was blue, I wouldn't start my argument with "But". The word but is used to warn the receiver that the next statement goes against what we have been saying. It sounds strange, for example, to say "She's fit, but she's healthy", or "I don't smoke, but I don't drink".
Occasionally, of course, we do have to use "but", but when every sentence you use starts with "but", the overall impression you give is that you disagree.
We are then presented with the question of what we can replace it with. Well, why not just leave it out? When someone asks you for information you have already sent, just give them a fact. "I sent it yesterday as an attachment". The difference is quite large. If my student had removed the "but", her answer would have delivered the message that she had already performed an action for the client before the client herself had requested it. My student would have made an overall impression of one who delivers. Depending on whether my student was making any progress with her client, you could argue that it would have been better and more effective to just send the information again. If you're thinking about clear communication, it might also help to think about what you want to achieve from it. For example, if a client says that they will pay me if I send an invoice. I'll send the invoice. My aim is to get paid, not to prove that my memory is better than theirs. No buts!

Thinking for the Client

There is a joke about a woman who explains to her doctor that she hasn't visited him for a long time as she has been feeling ill recently. Likewise, I haven't written anything on this blog for a while because I have been too busy working. At home, too, I've been busier than expected. I never thought a five-year old's birthday could make one feel so tired! Our son turned five at the beginning of this month, and we decided to take all the stress and organisation out of it by having the party in a place called Gibon, which is a large indoor children's adventure centre not far from where we live. My wife phoned and made all the arrangements, booked the Scooby Doo Room for the time and day we wanted, in the name of the Birthday Boy, and asked for an animator, a person who would lead the party and give the fifteen five-year olds tasks, run games, and generally ensure the parents had less to do with the children. She left her name and number as contact details.
A few days later, she received a call from the centre's manager, who said that they had noticed the bay's name was not Polish, nor was my wife's surname, and wanted to know if we would prefer the animator to speak English.
If you think about it, the manager did not need a large amount of detective skills to see an Irish first name, and that one of the mother's surname's is Irish, and conclude that the child probably speaks English. I'm sure that our son was the only Sean among the Jaceks and Macieks and Olas and Julkas in Gibon's history of birthday parties, so it didn't even require careful checking for the name to jump out and be noticed. However, what the manager did then was simple, yet rare and greatly appreciated. she took the initiative of contacting us and asking if we wished something different from what we asked.
My son speaks Polish (better than English, to my frustration), and all of his friends are Polish, so an English-speaking animator wasn't necessary, but before the manager phoned my wife, we didn't even know that it was possible to hire one. Often, if you don't know that the possibility to have something exists, you don't ask for it.
A colleague once told me of his visit to a dentist. He had booked the visit to get a filling for two of his teeth. After she had finished the job, he mentioned that he felt pain in a different part of his mouth. She replied that it may be due to the cavity in a tooth on the other side of his mouth. My colleague asked why she hadn't filled that cavity while she was working on the other two, to which she answered that he had booked the visit to take care of the other two teeth, which she had filled, and as he hadn't complained about the pain before, she didn't think he wanted it done.
I know teeth are more serious than a five-year-old's birthday party (except to the five-year-old!), but this example shows the contrast between thinking a little bit for your client, showing initiative -however small- and doing what you're told. I have no problem in recommending Gibon for any child's birthday party, but I'm not sure if my colleague would recommend his dentist.
Once again I seem to have written about Client Management rather than Communication, but the fact is that the little piece of empathy shown when talking to someone will help create, or build, the connection during the conversation. If both parties continue to imagine the situation from the other side, the working relationship becomes better and better, and before you know it, your conversation partner is telling everybody to take their five-year-old to your place. Make sure that's what you want, though!

Cultural Awareness - Foot-in-Mouth Disease

A friend of mine had bought a flat in Krakow some time ago, and had decided to sell it. As I live in Krakow, and she lives in Dublin, she asked me if I could help by delivering keys to the Estate Agent, and occasionally representing her to interested parties. For this reason, I found myself in an empty flat one Saturday morning with an Estate Agent and a couple from Zakopane to discuss which furnishings they wished to have included in the sale of the flat, and which they wanted to get rid of. During this time, the husband received a phone call, and excused himself. In order to make smalltalk, I fell back on that old Anglo-Irish standard, the weather. I remarked that the summer was slowly disappearing (it was September, and the temperature had fallen to the low twenties during the day). This topic was taken up with enthusiasm by the estate agent and the lady, who then said that she had seen a woman out walking with her baby in a pram, and the baby was not wearing a hat! The tone in which she said this left us in no doubt that she felt it was far too cold to have a baby outside with no hat. The estate agent reacted suitably shocked, and said that some parents were truly irresponsible when it came to their children's welfare. As an example, he mentioned a couple who had a baby of no more than a month old asleep in a car-seat which they were carrying around in a hypermarket. The lady agreed that they were behaving really stupidly, bringing their children to a 'breeding-place for viruses'. At this point, I quietly mentioned that in Ireland it was a regular occurence for parents to bring their children with them when they went shopping, and that children don't wear hats or coats outside until the weather is much colder. The others were a little surprised and embarrased at this, but I explained the theory behind this, that in Ireland we haven't such extremes of temperature, so we are less sensitised to changes in temperature. They declared that it was an interesting theory, but I am quite sure that they thought I and my kind were mad. They were also probaby feeling a little foolish at their faux pas.
I remember feeling uch the same level of awkwardness when I was about 10, and my friend had just got a new bike. I had a go on it, and said it was obviously a Raleigh Burner (Raleigh's answer to the BMX), as it looked much cooler than a BMX, because most BMX's had the letters 'BMX' placed all over them. When he told me the new bike was in fact a BMX, I felt really stupid.
When we think about Cultural Awareness, we often forget how pervasive and deep-rooted our culture is. The above example is a lesson. We all know not to offend our business colleagues by referring to them by first names (or last names, as the case may be), and we all remember the golden rule of when in Rome..., but how often would you think that there are cultural differences in when to put a hat on a baby!? This potential gaffe is on the same level as telling your new boss you think dog-owners are stupid, only to find out in the next sentence that she has two Yorkshire terriers. Of course, we will never get any closer in a relationship if we do not offer any personal information regarding our likes and dislikes, or our tastes and opinions, but there are many ways to express our opinions without offending our audience. "I wouldn't bring a small baby to a hypermarket, as I would be afraid of catching a virus" is a fine way to express the same opinion to develop the conversation without calling any person -or nation- stupid and irresponsible!

The Customer is (f**)King (stupid!)

Recently, I decided to buy hiking boots for my wife, as we were going on holiday to the mountains, and she had earlier said that she would like a new pair. I went to a local shoe shop, and asked for a pair in my wife's size. The lady behind the counter showed me the choices, and between us, we selected boots which I thought my wife would like, and which she thought were of good quality. I bought them, and noticed that the receipt stated that the shop did not offer refunds.
Later, my wife tried on the boots, and found that, not only were they too large, but there was a tear in the side of one of them. I went back to the shop, and explained the story to the lady. She said she was very sorry to hear about the problem, and looked for a pair without a tear, and in a smaller size. There were none. I explained that my wife had really liked the pattern, adn I was afraid of choosing a different pair. Without saying another word, she took the boots and receipt from me, and gave me back the money. She said that she was very sorry she couldn't give me the boots I had wanted, but that if I came back and tried later that month, she might have more of the same kind.
Before I went to the shop, I had expected to argue that the shop had no right to refuse refunds, and had prepared myself for the usual blank refusal from the shopkeeper. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shop assistant actually cared for me, and wanted me to be satisfied with my purchase. While she was busy cancelling the sale and finding the money, I looked at the selection of men's shoes available, and decided that the next pair I bought would be from there.
It's amazing, but people often forget about Customer Service when they talk about sales skills, yet the sales assistant's readiness to break the shop's regulations to make me happy meant that, although no sale was made, a sale (or sales) would be made in the future. In my company, we are always looking for ways to satisfy clients' needs, even before the clients themselves are aware of them. Once, a client sent us notification of termination of their contract. Our Client Manager immediately arranged a face-to-face meeting to discuss the reasons for their termination of the contract. During this meeting, it came out that, while they were more than happy with the service we provided, they felt thay could not afford it -we were too expensive, in other words. The end result was that they continued with a more economic, streamlined service, and as soon as their business picked up, they returned to their previous plan.
This can be put into contrast with a company which used to look after our internet marketing. We were very unhappy with their sales service, and with the fact that they only contacted us to remind us to pay invoices. We decided we wanted to renegotiate our contract (in effect, change the plan), but at the same time test how they saw us as a client. We sent them two months' notice of termination of the contract. A week later, we received a phone call from the company, warning us that we were making a big mistake, and reminding us that we would still get two more invoices. That was enough of an answer!
Your clients become your clients because they need your goods or services. But there are hundreds (or thousands) of competitors offering the same, so you have to make sure that your clients need you. I can buy boots from anyone, so I may as well buy boots from somebody I like. And I will like somebody if I think they understand me.
My advice is this: talk to your customers. Then, listen to them. They'll be surprised, and you will too.

People are People!

Occasionally, people ask me if I have any good advice for them to remember as they start a new job, or when they are about to meet and do business with a new culture. My favourite maxim is this deep philosophy: 'People are People'
When I say this, most people either just laugh and say 'Isn't that the title of a Depeche Mode song?', or they just laugh, and remind themselves to get advice elsewhere. What Iactually mean, of course, becomes clear when you think about what people are. In the film Men in Black, a character learns that there are aliens living on Earth, and that this fact is kept a secret from the public. He asks 'Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.' His colleague answers:
'A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. '
This is an entry to my way of thinking. To continue, we can say that people are, at various times, thoughtful, kind, random, surprising, cruel, highly intelligent, equally stupid, forgetful, absent-minded, creative, dull, blank, unoriginal, unprepared, efficient, assuming, etc. The list of character traits that people can have is as long as the list of people on the planet!
With this in mind, it is a wonder that we are able to communicate effectively with anyone at all. Fortunately, people are people (!), and it is in human nature to communicate, to connect, and to want to join together and interact. This, together with our tendency to make assumptions (e.g. when someone says "Can I have some coffee?" we assume they want us to give it to them in a cup with boiling water poured on it) makes human interaction possible.
So, remembering that people are people, we should really hope that they have all the virtues, but prepare for the eventuality of them having all the vices! If we communicate using simple language that is impossible to misunderstand, and continuously ensure that the listener comprehends, and accepts the message, then we achieve our goal. In order to communicate effectively, we sould never assume that the listener 'is on our wavelength'. To paraphrase, we should treat the listener as if they are children.
Of course, I don't mean we should condescend, or speak in a patronising tone of voice, but we must remember that people are people, and children are very easily distracted, and very quickly lose focus. It is also true for us, that our listener may be trying (successfully or not) to multitask, and read while we are speaking, or speak while they are reading what we wrote. We must be prepared for our listener to be interrupted, or to suddenly be forced to leave. We cannot rule out the possibility that the head of a multinational corpporation is also distracted from a conversation (although he probably won't be distracted by the ice-cream van coming round the corner!).
Happily, the opposite is true, too, and because peope, make assumtions, and suppositions, we don't have to worry too much about giving explanations exact enough that a computer will understand and follow. How often do we hear or say the welcome comforter 'I know what you mean'?
My advice, therefore, for effective communication is to think of people as people, to consider, but also to welcome the human element.

You've got the Wrong Guy!

Today, I was going through some old anecdotes from www.businessballs.com, and I came across this great example of how we are often forced into situations we are not prepared for, and also how people will often hear what they want to hear. If it wasn't for the BBC video and source, you might even think the story had been invented as an illustration of how little attention is paid to what people say.
To summarize, the BBC interviewed the wrong man as an expert, and both the interviewer and interviewee were able to bring the interview to a close without laughing or crying. I wouldn't be surprised if nobody at home noticed, either.

Here is the text from Businessballs:

"This is a true story. It concerned Guy Goma, a lovely cuddly business graduate from the Congo, who on 8th May 2006 attended the BBC building in West London for an interview for an IT job. At the same time, the BBC News 24 TV channel was expecting a Guy Kewney, editor of the website Newswireless.net for a live 10.30am studio interview about the Apple court case judgement. (Apple Corps, owned by surviving Beatles McCartney and Starr, lost their case against Apple Computers, in which they sought to prevent the Apple name being used in relation to iTunes music downloads.)

Due to failed communications, entirely the BBC's fault (both Guys were blameless in this), the BBC News 24 staff grabbed the wrong Guy (waiting in a different reception to Guy Kewney), who, being an unassuming, foreign and extremely polite fellow, dutifully took his place in the studio, and after declining make-up (really), was introduced on live TV to viewers as Guy Kewney, editor of the technology website 'Newswireless', and then asked three questions by the BBC News 24 business presenter Karen Bowerman about the Apple judgements and its implications for internet music downloading.

Meanwhile the real Guy Kewney sat and watched 'himself' on the monitor in the BBC reception. See the interview.

What's so utterly fascinating about this, is:

Guy Goma initially expresses surprise about the interview situation, but, largely due to his broken English and heavy French accent the interviewer interprets and leads Mr Goma's response to mean that he is surprised about the court judgement. If you listen carefully Guy Goma does actually mention his 'interview' in his first answer. See the transcript below. However the pressure of the situation is too great and he has little option other than to play out the role that the fates have created for him. He actually does quite well, given that he knows little about the subject. Subsequent media reports that Guy Goma was a taxi driver are false - he's a business graduate. He later attended his IT job interview but regrettably was unsuccessful. You can read what Guy Kewney thought of it all on his own blog at www.newswireless.net (there are several entries - read them all to see the full picture).

the wrong guy interview transcript

Karen Bowerman: ...Well, Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless.
[Camera switches to Guy Goma's face, portraying a mixture of shock, disbelief and impending disaster.]
KB: Hello, good morning to you.
Guy Goma: Good morning.
KB: Were you surprised by this verdict today?
GG: I am very surprised to see... this verdict, to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came they told me something else and I am coming. Got an interview... [another word, impossible to discern] .... a big surprise anyway.
KB: A big surprise, yes, yes. [seeming a little anxious]
GG: Exactly. [growing in confidence]
KB: With regard to the costs involved do you think now more people will be downloading online?
GG: Actually, if you go everywhere you are gonna see a lot of people downloading to internet and the website everything they want. But I think, is much better for development and to empower people what they want and to get on the easy way and so faster if they are looking for.
KB: This does really seem the way the music industry's progressing now, that people want to go onto the website and download music.
GG: Exactly. You can go everywhere on the cyber cafe and you can take [maybe 'check'?], you can go easy. It's going to be very easy way for everyone to get something to the internet.
KB: Thank you [actually sounds more like 'Thank Kewney' - as if Ms Bowerman was a little distracted, no wonder]. Thanks very much indeed.

Lessons from this:

• Good clear communications are essential when managing any sort of interview.
• Pressure situations can easily lead people (especially interviewees) to give false impressions, which are no help to anyone.
• The behaviours demonstrated in this incident illustrate the power of suggestion, and NLP, albeit used mostly inadvertently in this case; the point is that all communications involve a hell of a lot more than just words..
• The power of the media to interpret just about anything for their own journalistic purposes is bloody frightening."

The Mother of All Translation Errors

Last week, one of our translation clients asked if we did not feel threatened by automatic translation websites, which reminded me of my days at University, when our Computer Aided Translation lecturer explained that translation programmes were generally fine if you translate the same style of texts again and again and again (the most famous translation programme, Meteo, just translates weather reports). If we were ever worried, she said, as to whether computers would replace translators completely, we just had to type the phrase ‘pig pen’ into a computer and wait for the results. There is a very good reason why translation is an arts degree, as there is so much more to it than flicking through a dictionary. My interest in translation led me to read this article, from the BBC, about translated texts in North Korea, a society so closed that there are very few native speakers of English in the country to proofread the government-sanctioned English language translations of propaganda. The language used by the Pyongyang Times is, apparently representative of the language used in the street, where a Korean phrasebook for tourists contains a section of ‘useful phrases’, such as “The American Yankee is a wolf in sheep’s clothing”, and “the US imperialists are the greatest threat to humanity in the 20^th Century”

Here is a great example of different values placed on words, where in North Korea, often-used words like ‘war’ don’t even register with people, yet cause concern among their southern neighbours. The more we use a word, the less meaning it has. An example closer to our lives is the amount of sincerity (or lack of sincerity) put in the expression ‘have a nice day’, or equivalent, that servers use to indicate they have finished serving us. In business, there is the word ‘issue’ –a fantastic word which everybody understands means ‘definitely not a problem’.

The North Korean translations are a perfect example of cultural differences between languages changing the overall meaning and sentiment of the text. Aggressive language is used on an everyday basis in North Korea, which, by definition, reduces the sentiment of such language to everyday –in other words, because this kind of aggressive language is used regularly, we cannot take it to mean that somebody is actually aggressive. Another example of the cultural difference gap is in the speeches of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The West is often critical of his speeches, accusing him of ‘sabre-rattling’. However, they make the first mistake of translation in not looking at who his target audience is. Certainly, he is not making his statements for the benefit of the Western media, but rather to his own people. Regardless of his political views, the language that Mr. Ahmadinejad uses is the language of a strong, proud, belligerent tribal leader –in essence, a perfect role model for a leader in Iran. The most famous quote of Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, was just before the Gulf War in 1991, when the Western press quoted him as warning people to expect ‘The Mother of all Battles’. Again, the difference a bit of context makes in translation is enormous. Firstly, the phrase ‘the mother of all x’ is an Arabic idiom, meaning that something is very large (for example, you might say you have the mother of all headaches the morning after a party). Furthermore, Hussein’s quote was in a speech warning his own troops to expect the mother of all battles, which his audience would have understood as a reference to the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in 636AD, which saw an Islamic Arab army conquer Persia, leading in effect to the birth of the Iraqi nation. Hussein’s statement was actually a rally cry to his own soldiers, meant to warn them that the battle that was coming would be hard, but was justified. Again, leaving politics aside (which makes the world a lot nicer!), we see what is really a good piece of speech-writing, aimed to inspire, taken out of context by the Western press and redefined as aggressive.

So when reading the Pyongyang Times, take into account that it is a translation of texts written for a different audience, and translated by non-native speakers, with old dictionaries, from a different culture, and remember that aggressive language may not be intentionally aggressive.

1,700 insults in six months is a bit strong, however, so we may assume that the South Korean president is not a favourite of the paper.